Exit Stage Left, Fade to Yellow and Purple

Friday was my last day at Six Apart. On the 26th, I’ll be driving down to Sunnyvale for the first day of work at Yahoo (they even sent me a t-shirt & hat just to remind me!). Turn another page.

It’s been 13 months since I pulled the ripcord at Factiva and moved out to California to join 6A. Life in a start up is like running through strobe lights, the time has been super-sharp-focused but also fleeting. The company has come a long way and looking back on where we’ve been is like turning around after climbing a mountain, “Wow, look at the view!” We started in what used to be a dentist’s office in San Mateo. We shared a single phone line and our mail server used to be in the supply cabinet next to the pencils. Now there are leather couches, a receptionist and even a sign. The crowd at the weekly all-hands meetings is beginning to overflow the room in which it’s held.

The devotion of people at Six Apart is inspirational; I’m humbled by the talent of the engineers and feel lucky to have had a chance to put my shoulder into the yoke for a time. It’s sad to leave such a great crew of people but they’ll manage and opportunity knocks. The roar of innovation and buzz of excitment down in the Valley was just too loud to ignore and Yahoo is very much in the thick of it. More details on exactly what I’m doing later, give me a few weeks to get settled.

Yahoo is in an excellent position to take advantage of the various content and services that are connecting themselves across the web. Their open and well-documented APIs give independent developers the chance to to extend and innovate on top and around Yahoo content. Furthermore, their install base of over 200 million members allows them to provide a very compelling and highly contextual personalized experience. They’ve been around ten years so they’ve matured and have got a good business sense about them.

Lots of folks that I respect have made the move over to Yahoo and when you read their posts on why they’re moving, you can see why I too am excited about joining them.

Danah Boyd
Neil Budde
Chad Dickerson
Christian Lindholm
Jeffrey McManus

I’m really looking forward to it, we can build some useful things. It’s going to be lots of fun.